From time to time, when we're reflecting on the success of technography, despite the best of our clearly ratio-technical intentions, one of us uses the word "magic."

Usually we're talking about some unexpected leap of understanding or moment of invention, some apparently sudden shift to a new level of functioning.

It's always the group, never a particular individual, that we describe as magical. True, as facilitators and technographers we are so fixed on group process that it is often difficult for us to isolate individual behaviors. But it[s also true that these magic moments are most often experienced and acknowledged by everyone in the group.

The magic we're attributing to the business meeting is similar in almost every way to that reported by Bill Russell when recounting moments of shared excellence during a game of basketball:

"The game would move so quickly that every fake, cut and pass would be surprising, and yet nothing could surprise me. Even before the other team brought the ball in bounds, I could feel it so keenly that I'd want to shout to my teammates, 'It's coming there!' -- except that I knew everything would change if it did. My premonitions would be consistently correct, and I always felt then that I not only knew all the Celtics by heart but also all the opposing players, and they knew me. There have been many times in my career when I felt moved or joyful, but these were the moments when I had chills pulsing up and down my spine."(Bill Russell, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man, Random House, 1979)  

The Explanation

Because facilitation is at least partially a rational process, we are driven to create an at least partially rational explanation for these moments of meeting magic.

What follows is no more than that: a partially rational explanation.

As good rationalists, we begin by creating a distinction. For basketball players, the only really important thing is performance. What they actually do during the game is much more important than what they know how to do. Of course, the more they know how to do, the more likely it is that theyïll be able to perform well. But there's an important distinction to be made between knowledge and performance.

In Bill Russell's description of his moment of shared excellence, he wasnït surprised by his performance or by the game itself. He says that he experienced himself as knowing his team, and even the opposing players "by heart."Knowing, and being known. And that is what truly surprises him. That state of generalized, shared knowingness.

In a meeting, there's a similar distinction to be drawn. Since meetings are largely verbal exchanges, the nearest thing we have to performance in a meeting lies in what people say.

As in basketball, there's a distinction to be drawn between what people know and what they say.  

As good rationalists, we construct a chart (suggested by Doc Searls):  

(this illustration is loosely based on a chart found in John-Seely Brown's "Learning, Working and Playing in the Digital Age")

In most meetings, as in most games of basketball, the experience of knowing each other "by heart" is a rare thing. More often than not we feel we hardly know ourselves, let alone each other. The distinction between what we say and what we know is many layers deep. What we say is further separated by what we think everyone else has actually heard, or is ready to hear, or wants to hear. We are often confused by what we hear people saying, and sometimes equally confused by what we hear ourselves saying. We are estranged not only from each other, but also from ourselves. Our communication, even when facilitated, tends to stay in  the "say zone" (#1), confined to our unexpressed interpretations of what we think everyone else means.

Though Technography can't totally remove the distinctions between what we say and what we know, it can help reduce many of the barriers. By having our contribution typed on the screen so that all can see it, we don't have to worry so much about whether or not people are listening to us. We actually "see ourselves being heard." If what we see isn't what we thought we said, we can edit our words, and re-edit them, until we are satisfied that what we know has been recorded. And then we can let go of your words, and focus on what someone else is saying. By being able to read and work with the combined input of the group, we are able to focus our attention on the effectiveness of our contributions to the group. Not on what "they"are saying, but on what "we" are saying together. By reformatting their work from an outline to a document or presentation, the whole group changes its focus, reflecting, not on the contributions of any individual, but on its success as a group in representing its collective understanding. When the meeting becomes magic, we experience the same kind of knowing that Bill Russell described. We find ourselves together in the "know zone" (#2).  We are surprised by clarity and appropriateness of what we are saying, and yet not surprised. The filters between what we say and what we know seem to have disappeared. We know what to say. We know that we are being heard. We know how we are being heard. We understand each other as if "by heart." We each find ourselves empowered by the others, larger than life. And sometimes, somewhere during the process, the magic happens.. (discuss)

The "group experience" phenomenon surely is something we all see from time, and it indeed would be worth while to consider how it arises and can be recreated. A bibliography that I serendipitously found on the Internet would appear to have some places to look for research studies and other reports. In Dialogue, this experience is sometimes called Metalogue. Indeed, Daniel Yankelovich called his very good book of last year The Magic of Dialogue. Any dialogue group that has been around for some time probably can provide some examples. Brainstorming groups likewise. The degree to which the people in the group are familiar with one another's thinking would seem to me to be the key variable in this phenomenon. The four-part matrix shown in the article would appear to be a variant of the Johari Window.

Jim Murphy
(617) 635-3909

"Can anyone refer me to some resources for analyzing the success of a collaboration: what are the factors, the measures, the questions to ask to determine whether or not it 'worked'?"

And later added:

I appreciate the thoughtful sharing and caring, and once again find myself amazed at the generosity and spirit of this group. What I have learned so far is that we are clearly in accord that collaboration is a good thing, and we apparently have developed useful feedback practices to help participants see the value of their collaborative efforts.

Interestingly, I have not as yet received any pointers to actual scientific research. It's probably too early to reach any conclusions from this, other than the poor phrasing of my question, but my guess is that collaboration is something that we as facilitators take so profoundly for granted that the very idea of seeking out hard data about the actual benefits of collaboration is, for us, like asking for data demonstrating the benefits of breathing.

Then there's the question: "collaboration compared to what?" Nonetheless, It seems to me that if there were hard data about the benefits of collaboration, we would all benefit. So, I repeat and refine my request:

Can anyone refer me to some SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH demonstrating the nature of a successful collaboration?

And received the following responses from the IAF ListServ:

As I may have neglected to say in my prior response to your question, often organizations come together to accomplish something that they believe they cannot do effectively alone. So, it would seem that one potential powerful message is....

Did the task get done?

I realize this is simplistic, but it is a powerful success measure.

Take care,

Peter Altschul

From:  Sandor P. Schuman

An interesting article based on an empirical analysis is: McCaffrey, DD. P., Faerman, S.R., and Hart, D. W. (1995). The appeal and difficulties of participative systems. _Organization Science_ 6:6 (Nov-Dec) 603-627.

There is a foundation in St. Paul, the Wilder Foundation, which has done some helpful work on collaboration re: non profit sector. They did a search of studies and boiled down those which seemed to report actual research which indicated what contributed to the success of collaborative efforts, then pulled them together in identifying 19 factors which contribute to successful collaboration. The publication has a yellow cover

. . .

Here in Arizona we developed a game using the 19 factors to enable collaboratives to look at themselves in the light of the research.

Jim Wiegel
Institute of Cultural Affairs
Phoenix

I followed with interest the discussions on the list in response to your request on the "Effectiveness of Collaboration" changed to Scientific Research.

I have a number of thoughts relating to your second request. They are rather philosophical in nature and might therefore be useless to you! My first though is that the efficiency of collaboration within the for-profit sector is reflected in higher profits. The second thought is something that EWET - the nonprofit where I am employed is constantly confronted with: to balance quantitative and qualitative impact. Appreciative Inquiry might be the more appropriate approach to assess the "effectiveness of collaboration" which approach (AI) might in itself be unscientific. Trust for an example, represents a foundation of collaboration. How do you scientifically measure trust ?

Regards

Arie Bouwer

We have worked extensively with a range of public/ private and public/public (multi-agency) partnerships where there has been a significant gap between what the partnership is achieving and what it could achieve. These partnerships have concerned fields such as small business development, urban regeneration, and lifelong learning.

Often rather than adding value, the "collaboration" subtracts value, because of failure to agree on mechanics and mechanisms, the time spent in meetings, helping to keep people informed and involved, etc - often linked to insufficient commitment throughout partner organizations.

What we have found helpful, consistently, is asking the "partners" to articulate the added value the intend the partnership to achieve - which goes beyond the "vision" for the partnership itself. How will the partners add value by working together? And, importantly, where is the added value for the individual partners? - a key to organizational commitment.

Prompts on added value can help in this process: how will (and for evaluation, how has...) the collaboration achieve, compared to not working together:

• greater outputs/ benefits/ impact?
• increased resources
• critical mass?
• faster progress
• sharing of costs/ pooling of resources?
• improved intelligence?
• new/ more effective ways of doing things
• vehicle for engaging/ working with others?

These also help provide success measures against which to judge the effectiveness of the partnership.

Derrick Johnstone

It depends on the context. I performed an evaluation about two years ago on "The Council for Collaboration" of the SE Minnesota Initiative Fund (an economic and social development organization). The council's job was to foster collaboration among the many government, non-profit, and business organizations in SE Minnesota on a wide range of issues. I evaluated their work through focus groups, interviews and surveys. So let me know if this is what you're getting at or if the context you are thinking of is radically different.

Randall W. Kindley The Performance Group

Here's a potential direction, not an answer. There is an article called "Using system dynamics to measure the value of information in a business firm," written by Thomas Clark and Fred Augustine and published in System Dynamics Review (vol. 8, no. 2, Summer 1992, pp. 149-173). They created a high level system dynamics model of an organization and then simulated the results of "distortions" (accuracy, timeliness, and reliability issues with the information) on various performance indicators (ROA, ROE, sales, market share, etc.).

One could do a similar thing for collaboration. Create a model that shows how collaboration supposedly contributes to an organization's goals, and then disrupt that collaboration (in the model--experiments on computer models are far less expensive than those on people) and measure the effect in whatever way makes sense for the organization.

Bill Harris

PS: The article is also available in George Richardson's _Modeling for Management_ Vol. 1, p. 399-423.

One output of pre-planning is a statement of goals, objectives and deliverables/outcomes for the collaboration. This is at two levels: 1) as understood by the sponsor(s) and 2) as understood by the particpants. These can be used as the quality measures for the collaboration/meeting. The questions need to be asked of both the sponsor(s) and the participants. Search the web for information on "balanced scorecards"

Allan Gardner

Although you do not have the option if you are doing a post-hoc review, I have found the best approach to be identifying up front, with the stakeholders, what they would like to see as realistic, obervable/measurable outcomes from collaboration that would signify success, and then afterwards analyzing the extent to which those outcomes were in fact achieved.

After the fact, one can sort of retro-work it by asking what they might have expected as reasonable outcomes and whether they got them or not.

I find facilitating the group's creation of its own success criteria in advance works very well to focus the collaboration activities, to create a "scorecard" that is directly relevant to their needs and situation, and to fairly clearly highlight any next steps that may be needed to further their pursuit of success.

Good luck!

Bill Willging

Finally, some links that I (Bernard) found on the web:

The Effectiveness of Distance Learning

Assessing Your Collaboration: A Self-Evaluaton Tool

A "complete" checklist of the benefits obtained with intranet-based communications

Software & Information Industry Association's 1999 Research Report on the Effectiveness of Technology in Schools

As archetypes or prototypes, games and playgrounds provide both the shared experience (text) and the shared meaning (context) necessary to form and nourish community. As do meeting rooms and meetings.

Meetings may or may not be games, but games are definitely a kind of meeting. And both are best when they're fun.

Perhaps if we remembered more about life on the playground, we might actually understand more about meetings and meeting rooms.

When you're playing on a playground, you don't think about how much you're learning, or whether you're learning or playing or working. You probably are doing everything at the same time. Sometimes you really have to do things you don't think would be fun. And some kids don't play right, and sometimes you need somebody to give you very personal permission and protection.

But you can wander if you want to, from group to group, place to place. You can pretty much always find a place to be alone or a space to dance when you needed to.

What do you see? A room dominated by a 500-pound mahogany table surrounded by neat rows of stiff-back chairs?

I don't think so.

And what do you see people doing? sitting in rows listening to somebody talk? watching somebody play with an overhead projector?

I definitely don't think so.

In my state-of-the-art executive playground our sandbox is a collaborative CAD-CAM; our jungle gym a multi-user 3-dimensional workspace; and our see-saw a tool for exchanging strategic visions.

But I wax perhaps too poetic. And perhaps this poetic wax can be better molded by the minds of the many. So, I invite you, in your singular manyness, to take a turn or two envisioning life on an executive playground, where you can work and learn and play in the fullness of abilities. And, just for the unfetteredness of it all, envision an executive playground in a virtual world, where playgrounds can be infinite and the players without limit. And, for the sheer glee of it, populate your playgound with executives who are really grown-up. Adults who are mature enough to be playful and mindful, inspired and sensitive. Oriented as much to the task as to each other, to the world as to the work. Where what it is is fun.